FMLN to form government in El Salvador

May 25, 20095:57 AM CST

San Salvador, May 24 (Prensa Latina) El Salvador president-elect Mauricio Funes said the left-wing Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN) will have ‘a visible presence’ in his government after his June 1 presidential inauguration.

Several political sectors in the country have demanded that capable and honest people should hold the highest posts, after considering corruption was the worst sins committed by the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) which ruled El Salvador for the past 20 years.

Mauricio Funes, who ran for the FMLF in last March elections, told reporters he was not yet ready to announce the names of his cabinet members for his next five-year term.

Although some names have been leaked to the press, the president-elect preferred not to elaborate on the issue, but stressed ‘they are right when they say (FMLN members) that they must have a visible presence in the government, and they will have it,’ he stressed.

It will be like that, ‘not because they are imposing it on me or because a quota has been agreed upon,’ he noted when announcing that some of his ministers are members of the FMLN and others are not.

However, many things can happen during the talks we are holding, all of them have quality, credentials to be part of the cabinet, but for different reasons they might be included or not, he said in allusion to some of the names released to the press, such as Alex Segovia, Carlos Caceres, Norma Guevara, Francisco Caceres and Hector Dada Hirezi.

It is an express faculty of the president to appoint and swear in the members of the Executive, but Funes admitted that the FMLN’s request to have a visible presence in the government ‘is logical’.